Tesla rental

[Bill906]

When I recently rented a Model 3 it took a bit to get used to the one pedal driving. Once I noticed the black bar/green bar, it got much easier. I like being about to see how much power is being applied to the wheels, and whether that power is motoring or regenerating.

What surprised me was my dad. (I took the 300 mile trip to my parents house for a long Easter weekend.) He's pretty old and pretty set in his ways. I didn't think he'd like how different driving a Tesla was. Not only did he not complain about it, He actually liked the one pedal driving. What was really cool was on Saturday morning he asked what I was doing. I said I was going for a walk with mom. he asked "Can I borrow the car?" (Please don't tell Hertz, he wasn't an authorized driver )

Yes, technically coasting is more efficient than regening, but I drive a car to get to get somewhere as reasonably quick as possible. Sometimes if I'm bored and not in a rush, AND not somewhere where I'll piss off other traffic, I might play the hypermiling game. But everyday driving, I'm accelerating and decelerating at a level almost uncomfortable. (I said ALMOST!). and I typically consider speed limits to be minimum limits, not maximum. I will not be getting 500 miles out of my 500 mile CT. Not even on a good day.

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[Bill906]

The thing that irritates me most about FSD beta is the cars refusal to let me teach it a damned thing!!!

Tesla can't do that. They are working on full autonomy. They need a car that will drive safely ALWAYS. There are a lot of bad drivers on the road who think they are good drivers. What if a bad driver (who claims to be good) taught his car to always hit the accelerator when it saw a yellow light? Then once autonomous, it did that and caused an accident. Who's at fault?

 

[uscbucsfan]

Tesla can't do that. They are working on full autonomy. They need a car that will drive safely ALWAYS. There are a lot of bad drivers on the road who think they are good drivers. What if a bad driver (who claims to be good) taught his car to always hit the accelerator when it saw a yellow light? Then once autonomous, it did that and caused an accident. Who's at fault?

Plus the HW would be far too expensive to have each car learn locally. The individual car does no learning. All of that is processed centrally and pushed back to the car. The additional of real-time map, flow, road condition updates make people believe their car is learning locally, but it's not.

 

[Rutrow]

Tesla can't do that. They are working on full autonomy. They need a car that will drive safely ALWAYS. There are a lot of bad drivers on the road who think they are good drivers. What if a bad driver (who claims to be good) taught his car to always hit the accelerator when it saw a yellow light? Then once autonomous, it did that and caused an accident. Who's at fault?

You're absolutely right, but it's a shame. FSD could learn a lot from some drivers. If A.I. was half as good as me at discerning good vs bad drivers it would know whose driving style to mimic. I can usually tell before we've left the airport grounds whether a taxi/Uber/shuttle driver is to be concerned about, or relaxed with.

FSD programming was stupid for over a year because nobody trained it not to change lanes in an intersection. It's against the law here (and probably everywhere) and even it weren't illegal, it's a dumb thing to do. Apparently navigation was set to change lanes ahead of an approaching turn at 0.3 miles from the upcoming intersection. That distance was in the middle of a busy intersection on my morning commute. I always cancelled FSD because there is always somebody moving to turn right on red at that intersection. Everytime it tried to change lanes, it WAS cutting off a driver who had that right of way. I sent dozens of snapshots to the developers over the years, so I'm sure now that those notifications didn't really go to anybody, they were just a way to make me feel like I was helping Tesla improve Autonomous Driving.

I guess RoboTaxis are going to drive like Tesla's head of FSD, whether they're a good driver, or a jerk. 🫤

 

[Crissa]

Yes, technically coasting is more efficient than regening, but I drive a car to get to get somewhere as reasonably quick as possible. Sometimes if I'm bored and not in a rush, AND not somewhere where I'll piss off other traffic, I might play the hypermiling game. But everyday driving...

There's a huge gulf between just coasting and hypermiling.

The less sensitive the pedal is, and the more you can keep your foot off it, the less variable human input it has and the better efficiency and smoothness you get.

-Crissa

 

[Sirfun]

What surprised me was my dad. (I took the 300 mile trip to my parents house for a long Easter weekend.) He's pretty old and pretty set in his ways. I didn't think he'd like how different driving a Tesla was. Not only did he not complain about it, He actually liked the one pedal driving. What was really cool was on Saturday morning he asked what I was doing. I said I was going for a walk with mom. he asked "Can I borrow the car?"

But everyday driving, I'm accelerating and decelerating at a level almost uncomfortable. (I said ALMOST!). and I typically consider speed limits to be minimum limits, not maximum. I will not be getting 500 miles out of my 500 mile CT. Not even on a good day.

Probably your dad is used to manual transmissions that use the engine to slow down a car WAY quicker than an automatic.

My wife drives like you described yourself. She definitely considers speed limits as minimum. Her favorite complaint about other drivers is "at least go the speed limit"! She's actually a very good driver, just not very efficient. Her name is Maria, I like to tease her and call her Mario. No telling what riding in a 3sec. 0-60 Tri-motor will be like.

 

[JBee]

Well today we did a lap around the south of San Antonio looking at properties. Filled up near New Braunfels to 95% because there is no supercharger at all south of SA. Thought, "yeah we'll be right mate" with our little trip through the rural areas. By the time we got to the last property after 170miles the M3P was looking for a supercharger, and wouldn't let us program going to a SC after spending the night at the accomodation. Arrival battery was meant to be just 12% and we can't charge there overnight at the hotel.

So I pulled out my pedal range feather (I always have one built into my shoe since we bought our first Prius 22 years ago). Worked a charm, I only went 55mph on the county road, and used my "throttle lock" technique by jamming my foot next to the center well and not moving it, and just it ride the speeds out in that position, only going off it on the downhill parts so it shows no bars (green or white). I found I could drive it comfortably whilst keeping it within the constraints of the "Chill" mode wording above the bars.

Then once we hit the freeway I resorted to some slipstreaming behind a double trailer FedEx truck. Staying about 40-50ft behind him seemed to have the least energy consumption. It was moving maybe up to the end of the "Chill" but now we were doing 65-70mph. Done that for about 15miles before he turned off and there wasn't any other trucks to tag behind.

With all that, over just 57miles we ended up with 20% left at the apartment instead of 12%, and now it thinks we should have 9% left at the supercharger.

Happy days.

 

[ldjessee]

Regen braking is very similar to old engine braking from old manuals, so it does not shock me that your father had no issues driving the Tesla.

 

[Crissa]

Regen braking is very similar to old engine braking from old manuals, so it does not shock me that your father had no issues driving the Tesla.

Alot of people worry EVs will drive soullessly - but there is no reason they should. They can literally be more responsive to user input, and their smoothness is literally up to the driver directly.

The amazing 0-60 numbers from EVs should show that as well. You no longer fear wearing down your brakes or wasting so much gas slowing down - or time, because you're back to speed basically instantly. So you can slow down for every doofus on the road and not lose any time overall.

-Crissa

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